


More Than You Seem

by Andromedanewton



Series: Anita and Edward (my canon divergence) [2]
Category: Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter - Laurell K. Hamilton
Genre: F/M, Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-02
Updated: 2016-08-02
Packaged: 2018-07-28 22:35:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7659502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Andromedanewton/pseuds/Andromedanewton
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Edward explains what he thinks happened and why while Anita is forced to consider what she did and how she feels.</p>
            </blockquote>





	More Than You Seem

**Author's Note:**

> Please read the first part before this or it won't make sense!

I went and got showered and changed while Edward made a fresh pot of coffee. I wouldn't get to sleep soon, wasn't even sure I could contemplate sleeping after what had happened. While I wanted to linger in the shower and scrub myself clean it gave me too much time to think so I sped through it, dressed in black from head to toe; underwear, Nikes, jeans, polo shirt; I put on all my weaponry and went back out.  
Edward met me at the kitchen door and handed me a coffee made just how I liked it. Now I had the chance to look at him I realised his hair was shorter than whoever the other man had been, his eyes were just a shade cooler, but it had been close enough to fool me.  
'You'd better sit down.' He said, leading us back to the kitchen. Once we were seated around the corner to each other at the table he sighed, a long deep noise I didn't think I had ever heard Edward make before, showing his frustration and worry with one simple action. 'The man who trained me, Van Cleef, he always talked about having a back up plan, but I never thought he would go through with it.'  
'Are you going to say cloning? Because if you say cloning I'm going to, I don't know, but I will.' I said out of desperation for something to say.  
'Not cloning.' I sighed with relief. 'But he wanted to have decoys of his best agents. Someone he could use to get to people, to fool loved ones, to use as a patsy.'  
'So, what?' I pulled a face, still not giving him eye contact, it was just too embarrassing, 'like some kind of face mask? Because I had no idea they were that realistic outside of Hollywood.'  
'Try plastic surgery.' He took a long slug of his coffee. 'He thought if he picked someone of a similar size, build, etcetera, that he could get information without risking the actual agent, without endangering his best, without compromising those he couldn't afford to lose.'  
'Like you?' I asked, staring into the depths of my mug.  
'Like me.'  
'But I don't get it. What could Van Cleef hope to achieve by having this other you...you know?' I didn't want to say it. He knew so I didn't need to repeat myself.  
'I can only think of one reason.' Edward put his mug down close to mine, so close I could feel the heat from it against my fingers.  
'Which is?'  
'To see how you feel about me. To see if you could be used against me, if it came to it.' The thought gave me too much to consider. To see how I felt about him. To use me to hurt him. If I had been asked twenty-four hours ago how I felt about Edward I'd have said I respected him, that we had some weird friendship dynamic where he would help me out, for a price, but he was dependable in a fight, if a little over the top. But now? His doppelgänger had made me realise perhaps there was more to it than that. Perhaps I had pent up feelings for him that I shouldn't have, that he didn't reciprocate, but now the cat was out of the bag, so to speak, for both of us. 'Anita, look at me.' I rolled my eyes up, not wanting to tilt my entire head as though it would somehow be more embarrassing. 'Do you have feelings for me?'  
'I...' The words stuck in my throat. 'I don't know.' I got to my feet quickly, planning on putting some space between us, but he caught my forearm and I stared at his fingers on my skin, a similar motion to earlier but different, goosebumps breaking over my skin.  
'No lies between us, Anita.' He said quietly. 'Not at this stage of the game.'  
'Everything's a game to you. Always has been.' My tone was as hushed as his but it was more emotional than I had wanted or expected it to be and it surprised me.  
'No, bad choice of words, this isn't a game, this is way beyond that. You could be in serious danger.'  
'Not my first time.' I shrugged off his arm and went and fetched the coffee pot for something to do.  
'No, but it's the first time it's because of us.'  
I refilled his mug first then topped up my own before putting the pot on the small cast iron trivet that sat in the centre of the table. 'There is no us, Edward.'  
'Van Cleef doesn't know that.' Which meant he did. I was an idiot for thinking Edward could have reciprocal feelings for me and I was a fool for falling for Van Cleef's trick. It had forced me to realise that we were just partners in crime, sometimes literally, monster hunters extraordinaire and nothing more. And weirdly, that hurt.  
'So, what do we do?' I added a little more cream and sugar to my mug but still didn't sit.  
'You take me to this guy's hotel and we hope we get to him before he can report back.'  
'And if he already reported back?' I stopped stirring as I waited for the answer I didn't want to hear.  
'Then we leave, I take you with me and protect you until I can get Van Cleef off your scent.'  
'Wouldn't that make it worse? Show him you have concerns about what happens to me?' I deliberately avoided the word feelings, or that he cared, because I wasn't sure he did, not in the way Van Cleef thought, and apparently not in the way I wanted him to. Gah! What a mess!  
'Yes and no. Would you please sit?' I did as he asked. 'He will think I'm protecting you and that might, in the short term, make it worse, but long term it gives me a chance to track him down and warn him off. He will listen to me. I might not be one of his any more but he knows not to fuck with me.'  
'But if we catch the guy from tonight and he hasn't reported back there'll be no need to run, right?'  
'Right.'  
'So what are we waiting for?' I gave him a challenging look.  
'You're the one who just poured more coffee.' He reminded me.  
'I'll get travel mugs.' I got up again and did just that. This felt more constructive at least. 

Edward drove. He had an SUV parked half a mile away, which was why I didn't realise he was there, and we reached the hotel in no time. I took us straight to the room where he managed to jimmy the electronic card lock in no time while I watched his back. Was jimmying the right term when he put some kind of device in it? I wasn't sure, but we got in. The place was exactly how I'd left it, with my coffee still on the room service tray untouched and the bathroom still had, what did I call him? Edward two the revenge? Anyway, his pants and underwear on the floor. Edward, the original, didn't comment, he could figure it out for himself, and once he was satisfied the rooms were clear he asked me to turn out the closet and drawers while he checked for any electronic devices that may be watching us. Once he was happy with that he spoke.  
'We need to go through his things for any clue as to where he might be going, anywhere else he might have a room, just anything. Even the most mundane of things might be useful. Are you up to that?'  
I nodded. 'I owe that bastard, I'm up to it.'  
'Good.'  
He took the largest of the bags and tipped it out on the bed while I worked my way through drawers. I was checking for anything taped underneath when Edward suddenly pulled out his cellphone and pressed it to his ear, not speaking. I could hear the tinny sound of someone talking and eventually Edward replied with a harsh; 'You come near her again and there won't be a warning. I'll come for you.' He crammed the phone back in his pocket and abandoned what he was doing. 'Van Cleef knows. We leave, now.'  
He took me by the elbow, guiding me from the room rapidly. 'That was him?'  
'That was him. Asking how I felt about my pretty little girl now.'  
I wanted to ask him how he felt but that would make things awkward, okay more awkward, and I really didn't want to know. I already suspected I knew what the answer would be, so I kept my mouth shut. 'I can have a bag packed in ten minutes if we run home first...'  
'No.' He said sharply. 'No going home. If you need things we buy them as we travel. Call your boss, call anyone who might worry about you, tell them something came up and you'll be gone for at least a week, then we disappear, just you and me.'  
'How far are we disappearing? Do I need a passport? What about clothes?' I asked quickly, realising all I had was my wallet in my pocket, the clothes on my back and weaponry.  
'I've got you covered, Anita. I'll always have you covered.' He assured me, shifting his grip so he held my hand as more guests filtered into the hallway from the elevator. It looked more natural than him almost marching me and, if I was truly honest, holding Edward's hand was a rush on its own. 

We drove through the night, stopping once for gas and snacks, then we hit the road again. After five hours driving Edward realised I just wouldn't give in and sleep in a car and we hit the nearest hotel with a car rental place. He booked us a room with twin beds and returned the SUV with the plan that in the morning I would rent the car so as not to leave too much of a paper trail. As it happened Edward had fake ID for me 'just in case' and in the morning I would rent a car for Mrs Katherine Edwards.  
Edward ordered room service, just sandwiches and snacks, but he made sure I ate before I slept as tomorrow would be another long day. We finally hit the hay at almost eleven am, a full twelve hours since Edward's double surprised me in my car. I wish I had shot him now.  
As exhausted as I was my mind didn't settle as well as my body and I tossed and turned, plagued by nightmares I couldn't quite remember, and when the last one woke me with a strangled gasp I found Edward beside my bed, his hand out as though to wake me.  
'Okay now?' He frowned at me in concern while I tried to ignore the fact he was only wearing a pair of sweat pants, his muscled torso bare yet discernible in the dim light.  
'I don't know. Maybe.' I admitted as I sat up, drawing my knees to my chest with the sheets and hugging them. I was wearing one of his t-shirts, advertising a rodeo which made me think it was more likely Ted's.  
'You've been thrashing since the second you shut your eyes, near enough.' He sat on the bed by my hip as I nodded, I knew what I had been doing. 'Want to talk about it?'  
'Really no.' I shook my head. 'I'm still not sure how I feel other than in shock, I think.'  
'Okay, but if you change your mind.'  
'I know where to find you.'  
He lifted the covers and encouraged me to lay down again and make some room which made sense when he laid on top of the covers beside me, hands folded on his stomach, ankles crossed. 'Van Cleef is a scary motherfucker, but I'm scarier, so I don't want you to worry. I'll protect you to my last breath. He should never have brought you into this, should never have tried.'  
'I don't blame you for this, Edward, you know that, right?' I turned on my side so I faced him but he stayed on his back looking up in the darkness.  
'I know. It might make things easier if you did, but you won't. You'll save that anger for the people who deserve it.'  
'It's constructive.' I admitted as sleep began to pull at me again.  
'It's so very practical.' He agreed.  
I didn't remember him getting off the bed. I didn't remember anything for some hours. 

We were on the road again an hour after I woke, and Edward let me take the wheel for a bit. It gave me something to concentrate on besides the fact I had basically rolled over and offered myself to a stranger like a bitch on heat. No, not a stranger, I had thought it was Edward, which it wasn't, but that made it worse, or better, I wasn't sure how. Better because I hadn't thought it was a stranger, because I trusted Edward for the most part, but worse because I had thought it WAS Edward, and that wasn't a place I thought we would even look at a brochure for, let alone go to, but apparently I was willing to let him...I was willing. Edward, of course, was still just Edward, doing something complicated on his phone I didn't understand and making sporadic calls cancelling meetings, informing contacts he would be off the grid for a little bit, and leaving random messages I couldn't make sense of. Things hadn't changed for him, this would be another favour I owed him, but for me something had changed, something was different. I had a crush on Death, and would apparently let him fuck my brains out, given the opportunity. Geez I never did things by half. First a lycanthrope, then a vampire, who had been curious but not overly worried when I told him I was going away with Edward for a week on business, and now the best preternatural hitman in the business. Sure, he was human, but we always said we were a different kind of monster. Actually that was what Edward's evil twin had asked me, wasn't it? Was he monster enough for me? Someone had done their homework.  
'So,' I broke the latest silence that filled the car, not even the radio playing, 'this guy last night,'  
'The one you fucked thinking he was me?' He said casually without looking up from his phone.  
'Well yeah, not the crazy zombie.' I decided to try keep my tone as light as his and was glad he wasn't looking as my cheeks were burning scarlet. 'He said something and I just remembered it. He made some comment about being monster enough for me. Now to me that sounds like he was either referring to the fact I've been dating first Richard and now Jean Claude, neither of whom are human but Richard's secret is closely guarded unless you know the right furry or fanged people; or he meant the fact that you and I often call ourselves...'  
'Monsters.' He finished for me. 'But that's always been a private thing between you and me, because we're the only ones who understands the life.'  
'Which means we have someone spying on me or both of us to know this.' I glanced at him in the fading light.  
'Which makes sense. Although I doubt anyone is spying on me and I haven't noticed.'  
'Cocky much?'  
He felt him look at me. 'Is that what you said last night?' I swerved and I looked at him in horror as another blush flooded me and he grabbed the wheel and straightened us out. 'Jesus, woman! Are you trying to kill us?' He yelled and I hit the brakes, indicating to come off the road, pulling up on the dusty embankment before shutting off the engine, throwing off my seatbelt and getting out of the car, slamming my door behind me.  
I screamed in frustration as I walked back the way we had come, not really leaving but needing some fresh air and some distance. It was awkward, I felt like I was stuck on a school field trip and my assigned buddy was the guy I had a crush on who hated me. I was a grown woman, I could behave better than this, but anger, at what had happened, and at myself, was making me irrational.  
I heard Edward get out of the car, his door slamming and his feet rapidly gaining on me and I stopped and turned angrily towards him.  
'Just stop!' I shouted at him. 'Just stop with the comments, just stop trying to make this worse for me! I screwed up, okay? I made a monumental fucking mess you are now stuck dealing with, and I'm sorry but I'm trying to be helpful, to give any kind of clue that might help, but all I'm doing is making it worse and you aren't helping any!'  
'Get back in the car, I'll drive for a while.' He said simply but he stopped about six feet from me, well out of arms reach.  
'No, Edward, no. Not while you're making me feel worse, not while I am torn between being guilt ridden about what I did, who I thought I did, and how I have basically made your life more difficult because I am such a fuck up!'  
'You're not a fuck up, and you're not making my life more difficult.' He said far too reasonably. 'I shouldn't have said what I said. I know you feel bad and I'm making it worse because,' he sighed and ran his hand into his hair, 'I'm making it worse because I have to, because I don't know what to do about what happened other than protect you! I don't know what else to do with this information!'  
I pressed my hands over my eyes and took a few deep breaths before putting them down and looking back at where he had remained. 'I don't know what to do with it either.' I admitted, but I was sure it was in a different way to what he meant. I wasn't sure what to do with the fact I had some serious very non platonic feelings going on.  
'Let's get back on the road, I'll drive for a bit and if you think of anything else that might be helpful I'll try keep my snark to myself. What do you say?'  
'No more snark?' I narrowed my eyes suspiciously, not believing him capable of that for a second.  
'Much less snark. Minimal snark.'  
'I'll settle for minimal snark.' I agreed.  
'Good.' He stepped to one side and held his arm towards the car, suggesting I go ahead of him. I paused for a moment before doing so, this time going to the passenger door and getting in. He did the same seconds later, started the engine and we were on the road again.  
'How much longer are we going to be on the road?' I asked, breaking the uncomfortable silence.  
'About another ten hours.'  
'I'm going to need a change of clothes.'  
'We'll stop in the next town, grab dinner and some supplies, change cars again.'  
'You think we're being followed?' I turned in my seat just enough to see him properly while tucking my left foot under my right thigh.  
'I think if they know we're together they'll try, and we have to assume they know we are, after the call from Van Cleef. You're not safe with anyone but me, Anita.'  
I watched him concentrate on driving, his face a concerned mask. 'Thank you.' I said finally. 'For everything. I really do appreciate it.'  
'I know you do, and you can make it up to me.' He gave me a small sly smile and I realised this would be two I owed him.  
'I'll try but I don't know how.'  
'I'll think of something.' He turned back to the road with the small smile on his face. If I had to guess he already had something in mind.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first fic I have written as I post so it's a new experience for me! I have one more completed part, another mostly done (*coughs* smut smutty smut smut) and at least one or two more after that!
> 
> And did you spot the relevance in the name Edward had as false ID for Anita?


End file.
